New Front Door

Hi guys! I hope you had a nice weekend! My parents were in town and we all took a little trip to the Salt River, which I hadn't done in like a decade. It was seriously just what the doctor ordered. Other than being sunburned in the few random spots I missed with my sunscreen, I'm feeling rested and happy. :)

We're not quite ready to move over to the other side of the house yet, so we set up some temporary furniture in the master bedroom and my mom and dad slept in there. I have to admit I was a little jealous while I was setting up the bathroom for them. It's okay though. We're getting close with the floors, and we'll be moved in to our bedrooms soon enough. I was feeling the pressure bad a few weeks ago, but I sort of got over the self-imposed need to move in as soon as possible. We're fine sleeping in the playroom area for now. I'm mostly just sick of living out of suitcases still. But there's no need to do things hastily or to burn myself out. These things can and should take time to get done right.

And when I stop and look around, it's amazing to see all the things we are getting done! The new front door was installed last week and I'm loving it. I wanted to do something maybe a little more special, but doors are really expensive, especially 8.5' double doors. Since our front yard gets a lot of harsh Arizona sunlight, the sales rep suggested we go with a paint-grade fiberglass door instead of wood. Here's the one we went with. (don't mind the pile of plywood to the right of the door - we had to temporarily board off the entrance while we waited for the doors to get delivered that were about a week late. It was a really classy look and I'm sure our neighbors were sad to see the plywood wall go. :))

The old door was only about 80" tall, which felt way too squatty for the tall entry hall and front porch. 

Here are our plans for the front, which I'm hoping we can tackle next, after we finish the floors:

The sort of picture window situation isn't really working with the new doors - you can't even see the top of them. The simplest and least expensive way to fix it is to remove the whole front face and extend the two front columns all the way to the roof. We'll make them chunkier and maybe add a brick base to match some of the fencing we have in the yard.

A big change from the before, right? I think it will be a lot cleaner looking and will work better with the bones of the house, which really aren't all that Victorian other than the old trimwork. I'm hoping we can help steer this house more into the Cape Cod style direction.

Speaking of stripping things back and trying to figure out the style of this house, I've been confused about whether or not to keep the Federal style overhang that was above the old front door. Since we want to modernize the exterior a lot and take down all the gingerbread trim, I thought it might be nice to keep the scrolled overhang as sort of a nod to the original owner's vision.

I think it's kind of a cool shape and once all the new trim is up around the door and everything's painted white, including the scroll, I think it could be kind of Miles Redd looking and less Alice in Wonderland?

There's an awful lot of vertical space above the door that the scroll would help to fill, but I'm sort of loving the clean, more modern look without the scroll. 

Especially if we add a few rows of thick trim to the header, like I did in the mock up. I did this really fast in photoshop, so it might not make sense, but the bright white part is the new front of the entry (the new columns with the brick base) and the shadowed gray part is the door wall, which is set back about eight feet from the columns. I need to do some more research, but I remember seeing an all white house once somewhere online or in a magazine that had a style similar to our house, with the shake roof. The body of the house was a creamy white and the trim was a brighter white and it looked really great. If we did something similar, it would save us thousands of dollars by keeping the creamy white body color as is and then we'd just pay to have the trim painted white (or maybe tackle the project ourselves - although my hands get a little shaky imagining being up on an 18 foot extension ladder). I'm thinking of also whitewashing the brick and the cedar shingles that are just on the front of the house in a few places (we'd leave the shake roof, of course). The house looks pretty choppy with the dark trim and brick and shingle sections against the white body. I think unifying the color palette would be really pretty here. Also, I'm thinking bright, glossy red for the front door. Maybe my favorite Safety Red?

I think the red would look so pretty with the new hardware and the simple shape of the doors.

While we were pulling down the old siding to install the doors we found the wires for the doorbell which had been buried under siding (the one currently installed is battery-operated). I was so excited about this, because now I can order the doorbell I've been eyeing, which needs to be hardwired. I think it will be so pretty with the polished nickel house number and hardware.

Alright, back to floors. whew!

Valley House Tour: The Mud Room

At the end of the hallway past the kitchen pantry, is a bright, open storage space that we've been calling the mud room.

Right now there is no interior door access to the garage (you have to walk out this door here and about the three steps outside to the right is the exterior door to the garage - another one of those head scratchers in this house!)

(More after the jump)...

Eventually (probably when we redo the kitchen in a year or so) we'd like to reconfigure the pantry-kitchen-mudroom area and the access spaces to the garage and to the play room, which is above the garage.

But for the next while, I have plans to make this space work as our mudroom, where the girls will keep most of their shoes, their backpacks and coats (I guess more like light sweaters at Christmas time?? This will be an adjustment!).

It works out nicely for the three nooks to belong to each one of my girls. We're going to take off the folding doors here and either do hooks and open shelving or replace the doors with something that operates a little smoother. (and pinches little fingers less!)

On the other side of the room are more closets with shelving, and I think I'll use this space as craft storage for the girls (we'll probably put a little table next to the window here for projects) and party supplies. Since our pantry is pretty small, I'm sure I'll have some kitchen overflow going into the closet on the left, as well.

More brick floors to be painted! :)

I need to look into why the closets have that ledge on top, but it looks like its to account for the ductwork. I need to think about a solution there. Maybe just taking down the plant portion above the door here would be good enough for now?

And then there's the spiral staircase in the corner that goes up to the playroom. My kids were seriously so stoked about this staircase (I would have been too when I was young - I loved anything that felt like a hide away or a secret space), but I have to admit that I'm stressing a little bit about having this in the house.

It's the only interior stairwell to the playroom and guest room area, so it will be used a lot - like all day, every day. It's actually not all that cumbersome to climb as an adult, but I worry about kids getting hurt. I have a couple of ideas for making it a little more safe, but this will be one of the changes to the house when we do the kitchen overhaul. I think I'll probably put some flush backing on each step for now, so no little legs can slip through.

Also, I have a really long vintage kilim runner that I'm thinking of cutting up and using on the treads here. Wouldn't that look so cool!? I'd consider painting the stairs themselves a fun color but they were recently powder coated by the previous owners in an oil-rubbed bronze finish, so the condition is great. And it might be tricky to get a smooth enough finish here without spraying. It looks black most of the time anyway, which might look best with the bold colors of the rug I want to use.

Speaking of unsafe, here is the top of the staircase. I was freaking out when we walked through the first time. I was like, how is this okay to leave this huge gap in the floor?! Where is the railing!

I was planning on having to fix it ourselves before moving in (or asking the sellers to do it), but then they mentioned that the railing was hanging out in the back yard. It had not been reinstalled yet after they did the powder coating.

I felt like an idiot because I had totally thought to myself 'what a weird little half fence to put around a tree!' Duh.

This shot shows you that back porch area that we're planning to use to expand the kitchen into eventually. We'll probably also close in this back portion so that there is interior access to the garage (that brown door on the right) and a full size set of interior stairs to the guest area and play room. Right now that area at the top of those brown stairs is a back porch on the playroom that I feel like we won't miss too much.

This is all so far down the road though. I'm glad we'll get to live in the house for a while (during all the seasons) so we can see what parts of the home work for us and which we could do without.

Valley House Tour: The Exterior

Guys, I'm not much for tears, but this week has been a cry-fest for me. So many highs and lows!

It's a weird thing to share (even just parts of) your life with the internet. For a lot of reasons I was nervous to tell you guys the news about our move. I worried I would let you down or something (probably because a big part of me (the adventurous part) is a little let down that we're leaving). But, wow. Thank you from the heart of my heart for being so kind and generous and supportive about this decision we've made. You've lifted an enormous burden off my shoulders and have helped me focus on the "highs" that will come with this move.

When we found out Michael got this new job, we thought we had until the end of the summer before his start date. We only recently found out that they need him to start much sooner, so July 1 it is! Suddenly an entire summer's worth of east coast-based work has to be crammed into just a few short weeks. It's going to get a little hairy over here, balancing all that with preparations for the move. I'm still planning to post every day as usual, but I hope you won't mind if I have to miss a day or two here and there.

In the next couple weeks, while we're packing up our life here, I'd love to show you photos of the house in its "before" state and talk about my plans for renovating after we close. Michael and I have been calling it the Valley house, since it's situated in a pretty little valley of orange groves (and Phoenix is often called the Valley - especially by my parents, who live three hours north of Phoenix). We probably will just call it "home" from now on, but I thought it would be helpful for tagging purposes on the blog. :)

A little about the house: It was built in the mid-eighties. Five bedrooms plus an office, four baths. All those eaves and gables make it look bigger than it is probably, but there's no denying it's a big house. Probably bigger than we need right now, but every single room has a legit purpose for daily use, which was so important to us. Arizona real estate costs a fraction of what we've been saving for here in New York, so when we were house hunting we had to keep ourselves in check a little bit and not get too excited about how comparatively affordable it all was. Plus, I think we could stay in this house for the long haul (says the girl that's moved five times in six years), so we're okay with it being a little bigger than we maybe need right this second.

We were also looking at another house that was so beautiful, you guys. It was, like, perfection. But it was quite a bit more expensive than this house and it really didn't need too much work. And where's the fun in that? I love that we can put our stamp on this home and not feel too guilty about undoing what someone else already did (not to mention we'd be double paying for the renovations that way).

Also, we debated where to live in Phoenix a lot, but ultimately we decided one of the biggest reasons we are moving back home is to be near family (hello! never paying for a babysitter again!), so it made sense to live near family. I know some of you know where this house is, and I'd really love it if you didn't post about the location in the comments, just to help me to continue to feel comfortable about posting photos, etc. Thanks!

So, let's talk about the exterior of the house, which is a bit...tricky. Since the house is only thirty years old, I'm not having any internal struggles about removing some of the original gingerbread mouldings, etc.

The shake roof is getting some repair work done by the seller this week, but the inspector thinks the whole thing will need to be replaced in 5-7 years (which we took account of in our offer price). I think we'll do something other than shake when the time comes. The harsh AZ sun really does a number on those shingles!

But the shake stays for now anyway. I think I'll like it better when the house gets a paint job. I'm thinking a warm, creamy gray on the body of the house with a wash on the brick face in the same color. Dark charcoal or black on the trim.

All of the gingerbread and those scepter-like finials (?!) will be removed. I actually love the look of this short fence on the porch (just needs new paint), but I want to frame out the turned posts and take off some of the faux balcony situation above the front door.

Speaking of the front door, I seriously dig the crazy big, weird overhang moulding. The oval leaded glass needs to go, stat, and I'd love it if we could do taller double doors. While I love the look of solid doors, but the light from the current glass panes is nice on the inside. Need to figure that one out a little more.

Also, the landscaping is getting my side eye. I know the previous owner put a lot of money and thought into it, but it's not at all my style. I would love to eventually rip it all out and level it for a flat lawn for the kids to run around on with neighborhood friends (of which there are a-plenty! yay!).

Also. There's a wishing well. No words there. Other than maybe "scorpion lair"?

Obviously (and this goes for all my plans for the house) we're going to take our time with the big decisions/projects. I usually do approach the expensive undertakings in two phases (phase 1 usually involves painting it to make it livable and phase 2 is a little more invasive. There's going to be a but more of the phase 2 happening in this house from the get go, but as always, there will be plenty of the "make it work" phase 1 mentality.) It doesn't hurt to plan and dream in the meantime, right?

So now, what would you do with this exterior?

Concrete Planters

It's going to be sixty degrees today! What-what! Looks like yard work weather is upon us. I went to the garden center this weekend to pick up some flower beds and a few new planters for the balcony (this is finally happening!).

I found a few big boxwoods on sale and some pretty flowers for planting around the playhouse. And I wasn't sure if I had gone crazy when I was tempted by these flamingos.  #notAprilfoolsing

There were some really beautiful concrete planters at Lowes that I loved, but they were pretty pricey. So I bought a bag of concrete instead thinking I could come up with a DIY. When I got home I found this easy tutorial from BHG. It's just too good not to copy. :)

The basic idea is to use an interesting container for the outside shape with something basic and smaller inside.

Aren't these pretty? I'm really loving the sort of corrugated edged ones especially.

Have you ever done any concrete work? I've not done much yet, but I have at least three big projects using concrete planned for this year so I have a feeling I'm going to get a lot more comfortable with this stuff before long. :)